This land is his land

A recent story in the New York Times reported that media mogul John C. Malone is expected soon to pass media mogul Ted Turner as the owner of the most private land in the United States. A pending deal for a million acres of timberland in Maine will put Malone at the top.

Brad Kelley

Texas land, of course, is nearly all privately owned. As state Attorney General Greg Abbott tells folks on his website: “From the Panhandle to the Piney Woods, Texas is a place where citizens – not the government – own the land.”

So a land owner out here in Far West Texas must be close behind Turner and Malone, right?

According to the good folks at Land Report, the number 3 spot is in fact held by Brad Kelley, who’s bought land in recent years out the Pinto Canyon Road and elsewhere in Presidio and Brewster counties. (Land Report, as it happens, is edited by former Alpine resident Eric O’Keefe.)

Kelley leases some of that land for ranching, and other for raising exotic wildlife. He lives at his home, in Tennessee.